However, a man who declined to give his name but claimed to represent the owner, told The Phuket News that he had come with his companions solely to pay respect to the land spirits in the area.
To show his innocent intentions, the representative and the dozen or so men accompanying him walked through the village, making offerings to the land spirits in several place, the last being the La-to – the Sea Gypsies' spirit ground.
Accompanying the merit-makers were half a dozen police officers from Chalong Police Station.
One of the men who came with the representative said, “This area was bought a long time ago, but the Sea Gypsies want it.
“As you can see, the spirit house they have erected here is not very old.”
Villagers were not completely convinced by the show of piety. They showed The Phuket News a stack of metal fencing behind an empty house in the area and then pointed to a post hole which they said the land owner’s group had dug this morning. In the bottom was fresh cement.
“Today there were long-tail boat races at Rawai beach so many villagers went there,” said Sea Gypsy Pakawan Pramongkij. “Maybe they thought it was a good time to erect the fence, while there were not many people here.
“They put a post in, in the morning, but removed it afterwards,” she said. “However, you can see the construction tools they threw away in the deep grass.” She pointed to a shovel and a cement bucket.
The land owner’s representative declined to give any further comment but Kanwara Chua-On, a researcher assistant at Chumchonthai [Thai Community] Foundation, who is studying the Rawai Sea Gypsy village, said ownership of the land had changed hands many times.
She noted that a businessman from Chiang Mai recently built – on the Sea Gypsies’ children’s graveyard – what was intended to be a hotel, but had abandoned it because of community protests. The building is still there.
For the time being, the La-to seems safe, but it is not clear what will happen next.